Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapter 8

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapter 8
This post discusses skills in the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic single player campaign -- PC version, regular edition, HARD Difficulty.
For an index of all our hints and walkthroughs for this game, click here.

Chapter 8 - In the House of Ashes - +6 Skill Points, +3 for killing the Giant Spider

The Giant Spider is very chaotic to fight in melee. It can be done, but it moves quickly and can bash you aside easily. Also, smaller spiders continuously spawn until the battle is over. Finally, the continuous poison breath means you are generally limited to just 5 Health unless you are free with Antidotes, Health Potions, and Mana Potions (for healing).
The safest way to take it out is to find where it can't go, and shoot it; at the same time limiting the direction from which the smaller spiders can come at you. The easiest position is at the entrance to the huge cave. The Giant Spider can still poison you with its breath, but poison cannot reduce your Health to less than 5. Even with a Rope Bow, you can just win by attrition. When it is dying, it will back away then collapse.

You can kill the Giant Spider and still not rescue Leanna. However, do NOT kill Leanna or leave her to die in this chapter. You can decide in Chapter 9, where you can get +3 Skill Points for either purging Xana or killing Leanna. If you kill her here or leave her here, you get nothing.
If you do rescue her, she gives you information about cleansing your demonic taint (and get rid of Xana). She must still survive to get to Chapter 9 and unlock the Sanctuary door for you. Even if you get the information here, if you kill her, the Sanctuary will not be accessible. You must keep either Xana or Leanna -- you cannot get rid of both.

• In the room with the Black Orb key, the anatomy picture can be moved.
• In the laboratory, look for rafters and go up. There are mushrooms near one of the ceiling vats.
• In the laboratory, go down into the sewer through the square grates.
• In the laboratory, one of the cell beds can be moved to reveal a cache.
• In the room with the plate armor, there are some potions behind an anatomy picture leaning against the wall.
• In the lecture hall past the hub where you can find Arantir's study and the passage to the spider lair, there are two dormitories. In one of them, there is a scroll under the bed.
• In Arantir's study, the unlit wall torch on the left moves aside a shelf of books.